Unhappy with having to pay a restaurant's auto-gratuity of 18% for parties of eight or more, a pissed-off pastor used his receipt to express his indignation.

"I give God 10% — why do you get 18?," the man wrote above the autograt line before crossing out the pre-printed tip and signing the receipt "pastor."

The St. Louis-area server who posted a pic of the receipt on Reddit said the pastor was dining with a party of 20, and asked to have the $200+ bill broken up into smaller increments in a failed attempt to avoid paying the 18% tip.

"They had no problem with my service, and told me I was great," the server said. "They just didn't want to pay when the time came."

Redditors have been trying to track down the less-than-charitable Christian, but have so far been unable to identify the culprit.

At least one pastor was forced to issue a response denying responsibility, and the server herself has asked fellow Redditors to stop posting personal information of random people "who don't deserve a Reddit mob banging down their Internet door."

I used to make a ton of extra money in Chicago when I waited tables by splitting checks for large parties. For some reason, in Chicago and Chicago only, restaurants basically refuse to split checks. My friends and I just got to the point where we'd always have cash on us and just throw in on the bill at the end to cover anything because every restaurant we went to there pretty much wasn't even the option to split checks. Working in Central Illinois I was so used to splitting checks (EVERYONE SPLITS CHECKS) that I'd do it no problem.

The problem is...the double grat. A lot of times auto grat is put on the bills for parties over say...8 (like this one) and some restaurants I worked at it was almost hidden underneath all of the taxes...so when you'd split these checks up sometimes the auto-grat would be less than $2 and no one would see it so you'd end up getting double tipped and beyond. We used to laugh at that as a waitstaff but it was pretty shady and I never felt SUPER good about myself.

Now in Dallas...as a manager I ran into this stuff all of the time. Where I worked it was LARGE GROUP after LARGE GROUP and every table expected split checks...well you have to know most of my waitstaff were complete morons so it was quite the treat trying to help them figure out such easy things (waiting tables is easy, I don't care what anyone says...if you used to wait tables and you struggled at it I have little respect for the amount of common sense you have as a person)...

but the #1 complain I dealt with (and you can imagine the type of person these complaints came from) was auto gratuity for large groups with split checks.

"Well I'm just paying for myself! That's not more than 8!" I'm sorry, if you have a group of 30+ freaking people that takes up two entire servers sections and then don't feel like you need to tip even though they make $2.13 an hour and you take up their sections for 2+ hours of their time...

JFC

NOW, I am totally with Rain Man about tipping. Just freaking bump the waiters at Chili's up to $11 an hour, bump the fancy servers up to $13-$15 an hour, and get rid of tipping in general. The only problem with this is motivation. I was always paranoid about people hating me so I always gave 100% regardless of whether or not I was serving Bill Gates or a homeless man...I made enough money and didn't judge people by whether or not I believed I'd be getting a tip.

However, the typical waiter/waitress isn't nearly as educated as me (I'm an underachiever) and if you just start paying them an hourly wage you're rarely ever going to get that "extra mile" you'll get with good service that is tipped on.

That statement was actually kind of true. If they paid their waitstaff (as they should), that cost would definitely be reflected in the bill. Cutting out that cost gives the illusion of a cheaper dining experience.

What other reason is there for the restaurant only paying a tiny wage?

It is impossible to negate that payment from the customer without ****ing over the server.

The idiotic thing are these cheap assholes who want the restaurant to cover the service charge in the total cost of the meal. Guess what? Then you cease to decide if the server gets 15% or 18% or 25% or 10%. It will just be a flat 20%, invisible service charge. Or maybe 30%. You'll never know. It will just be hidden within the cost on the menu.

So now you have ****ed yourself because you were too cheap. Congrats.

Additionally, most of these assholes are hiding behind "Derp the serviss wasnt good enuff!" to justify their asshattery. As if tipping 8.00 is SOOOOOOOOO much harder than tipping $5.00.

Well, guess what? When you cease to make server's pay merit-based, what do you think you will get? Better service?

Try eating in Europe and tell me who gives better service. And I'm not slamming Europe. I spend a great deal of my time there, and I personally love that the servers don't work for tips and get health insurance and vacation. You get better service, just not as attentive (I think).

But all of this is just assholes trying to find some sliver of a justification for ****ing over somebody who is trying to serve them.

It is impossible to negate that payment from the customer without ****ing over the server.

The idiotic thing are these cheap assholes who want the restaurant to cover the service charge in the total cost of the meal. Guess what? Then you cease to decide if the server gets 15% or 18% or 25% or 10%. It will just be a flat 20%, invisible service charge. Or maybe 30%. You'll never know. It will just be hidden within the cost on the menu.

So now you have ****ed yourself because you were too cheap. Congrats.

Additionally, most of these assholes are hiding behind "Derp the serviss wasnt good enuff!" to justify their asshattery. As if tipping 8.00 is SOOOOOOOOO much harder than tipping $5.00.

Well, guess what? When you cease to make server's pay merit-based, what do you think you will get? Better service?

Try eating in Europe and tell me who gives better service. And I'm not slamming Europe. I spend a great deal of my time there, and I personally love that the servers don't work for tips and get health insurance and vacation. You get better service, just not as attentive (I think).

But all of this is just assholes trying to find some sliver of a justification for ****ing over somebody who is trying to serve them.

I just get really perturbed at the people that say I HAVE to tip. No, I dont.

You don't HAVE to be faithful to your wife.
You don't HAVE to give up your seat to an elderly woman with a respirator.
You don't HAVE to help a lost child find his mom.
You don't HAVE to tell someone they just dropped their wallet.
You don't HAVE to take responsibility for your actions.
You don't HAVE to tell the truth.
You don't HAVE to do any number of things that the social contract expects of you, even though it cannot demand them.

now I have worked with plenty of people over the years that probably never deserve a tip

9 times out of 10 though...you're either dealing with someone completely incompetent who is trying but is just not able to handle it (which is totally perplexing to me) or someone who has such horrible personal issues going on that they just cannot concentrate on doing their jobs. Or you get good service.

1 time out of 10 you get that true asshole who is a shitty server just to be a shitty server and doesn't give a **** what you think.

So the next time you are rude to a server or call over management or are just pissed off...just realize you're probably...

A) Way better off than them
B) They probably aren't doing it on purpose and
C) Be appreciative for A

because no matter what issues you are facing, every time you get piss poor service from some moron who can't even handle waiting tables...just realize it could always be worse!

and I'm not bashing waiters/waitresses/bartenders...I respect the hell out of the good ones and you can make a shit ton of money doing it...

I am bashing the ones in society who can't even handle waiting freaking tables. Effort and a pinch of common sense is all it takes. You don't have those two things then you are truly ****ed.